Jason has been giving the smallies a hard time in recent days. Not that they don’t deserve it, it’s just that I wish I was there havin at ’em, too. In our forthcoming book, Long Flies, I discuss a tactic called the jigging Swing that is one of the most deadly tactics for smallies, trout, salmon, and every other stream fish. And for smallies, it works really great with a crayfish imitation.
Another excerpt from our upcoming book Long Flies. This story is “hot off the press” because it’s a story about a fishing experience I had last week in Alaska.
Some anglers have difficulty considering these actual fly fishing tactics, and that’s okay as long as they don’t try to make others stop using these tactics. The fact is both of these methods have a long and lustrous history in the annals of long-fly fishing. To suggest to the fly fishers of Carrie Stevens’ day that trolling for brook trout was not fly fishing would have brought a flurry of sharp rebuttals and perhaps even a fishing challenge or two. Certainly was, and still is, the only way to access these fish with any sort of chance for success. Trolling is a great lake tactic, and belongs just as much to the fly fisher as to the gear guys.
Drifting is a form of trolling in which the boat is powered by the wind in lake or sea and by the currents in streams, rather than by rowing, paddling, or using a motor. In Reading Waters, I wrote about Marc Williamson, Fred Foisset, and me fishing Big Lava Lake in Oregon, and drifting with a sea anchor to control our speed. Like trolling, it’s a great way to access lake waters (where fish are often spread out) in a way that cannot be duplicated by casting.
But what about drifting/and or trolling in moving waters? Well, they both work there, too, but the currents must be figured into the overall equation, as well. Both back-trolling and regular trolling work. Back trolling is dome by facing the boat into the currents and using a motor to keep the boat drifting downstream slower than the currents. The fly is usually cast and jigged off the bottom as the boat slowly backs down. One can use the slower-than-the-current drifting boat as a great casting platform, too. Trolling is usually done against the currents, with the boat going upstream at a slow speed. In the lower sections of streams influenced by the tides, anglers often troll on the high slack tide, motoring slowing in both upstream and downstream directions.
Stream drifting is another matter. In this instance, the boat is allowed to move at the speed of the currents, and the anglers tows a line that has been cast upstream of the boat. It can be used to fish at any desired depth. For example, in Alaska, fly fishers can drift for kings and other salmon, using a bottom bouncing method that is both effective and easily done. This tactic is adopted from the drift fishers that use a fluorescent orange, red, or pink, one-inch Styrofoam float pegged on the line about four inched above the hook. About 18 inches above the float, they attach a pencil sinker or slinky. The line is cast upstream and literally dragged along by the drifting boat. The sinker bounces along the bottom, and the “lure” dances and bobs in the currents a foot or so above. The kings take it most aggressively.
To adapt this tactic to fly fishing, one needs to tie a fly that simulates the float used by the drift fishers. This is easily done by using a cone-shaped indicator with a collar of appropriately colored flash material blended with marabou, fur, synthetic fur, and so on. The hook is tied in, stinger style, an inch or two behind the indicator.
In the discussion on the Baitfish from L, I mentioned fishing Alaska’s Nushagak for kings. It was a successful morning using my strangely concocted fly. I rigged up the 10-wt. with a 300 grain, 20-foot sinking tip line and 6 foot leader ending in a leader ring. To the ring I knotted two feet of 15 lb. test Maxima Chameleon, allowing about 4 inches to stick out of the clinch knot attaching this tippet to the ring. An overhand knot at the end of this “dropper” kept the four, size 3/0 shot from slipping off. The unnamed “fly” went on the end of the tippet. Once in position to drift, I would cast about 50 feet upstream and shake the remainder of the line out into the currents. The drifting boat soon pulled the line tight. The shot served two purposes: (1) I knew from testing at the fly tying bench that three shot were necessary to sink the fly. I added another so that (2) I could feel the shot bouncing and hitting the bottom, telegraphing the movements of the fly to me most effectively. The sink tip alone would not do that. Hmmm, shades of Combat Fly Fishing.
As we drifted, I pointed the rod right down the line and only a few inches off the water. I held the line in my line hand in order to feel the movement of the fly along the bottom and to help set the hook. The strike was not a violent grab. Rather, the line just stopped and got tight. It felt just like the hook had caught on a snag. I used a Strip and Lift set to get the hook into the bony jaws of the big kings. They certainly can run off a bunch of backing–especially when they start with only a turn or two of fly line on the reel. After the first king fell to the fly, Caleb Hitzfeld, who was guiding Scott Snead and me, remarked that we should call it the King-a-ma-Bob. So it is.
The Nushagak lies about 30 minutes by Beaver nearly straight west of the No-See-Um Lodge. in the boreal forest of western Alaska.
The King-a-ma-Bob, designed to imitate the pegged float used by the gear fishers. The addition of a fur and flash collar at the front gives the "fly" extra action and flash appeal.
The big kings of the "Nush" loved the King-a-ma-Bob. I loved it too.
This story is from last week’s Alaska trip and will appear in our forthcoming book, Long Flies. The week was cold, rainy and very windy. We had one afternoon of sun, and that happened to be the day the chums were on the shallow bars.It was fishing extraordinaire, as the story tells.
Alaska’s Alagnak supports superb runs of chum salmon. These are by far the strongest, pound for pound, of any of the Pacific salmon. Add to that the fact that they school in great numbers on the shallow water gravel and sand flats that occur on the inside of the bends on this impressive river, and you have a fly fisher’s delight.
This day, Dave Graebel, Les Adams, Scott Snead, and I had been successfully fishing the Nushagak for king salmon, and decided to stop at the Alagnak on the way back to the No-See-Um Lodge, and fish for chums. John Holman, the lodge owner, and our pilot for the day, circled the plane above the river’s bends, until we found a “chum bar” heavily dotted with fish.
As we climbed out of the plane, our guide, Caleb Hitzfeld, told me he had seen a good concentration of fish at the top of the bar and on its outer edge. I headed up and began to wade out to the edge, about 150 feet away. Suddenly, there right in front of me, in water only mid-calf deep was a pod of six to eight chums. I cast and immediately took one.
When I’d landed it, I began to look closely at the water around me. There were pods of chum dotted all over the bar, stretching off to the limit of my vision. Just upstream, a small group finned softly in the shallow, but steady, smooth flow on the bar. I waded a bit to my right so I could cast up on the right side of the pod. The line stretched out over the water and then flipped around in a positive, overpowered curve. It was The L fished upstream. The fly drifted down, sinking as it came back, and a chum moved forward and took it. The fish’s every move was clearly visible.
On the next cast, I stripped the line, drawing the fly across the face of the pod, and one of the fish surged forward and grabbed the magenta Collared Leech. And so it went for the next two hours before the tide pushed in, forcing us off the flat and into the plane.
It had been the best day of chum fishing in my life. Not because of the numbers of fish. True, I’d caught chums to the excess, but it was the total sight-fishing experience that made the day so spectacular. That and The L fished upstream.
The Alagnak is big water with generously large chum bars.
Chrome bright chums are supercharged and fight as if possessed.
The chums smiled on the magenta Collared Leech fished with The L-- upstream.
I’ve just returned from Alaska after a week’s fishing at the No-See-Um Lodge (www.noseeumlodge.com) with Dave Graebel, Scott Snead, and Les Adams. John Holman, owner of No See Um, did a wonderful job of hosting us and providing positive information on fishing in some of the worst conditions that Alaska can offer in July. It was cold (as in really cold), windy (as in airplanes really can dance), and rainy (as in, boy am I glad I have my Simms guide jacket with me).
We fished for kings, chum, arctic char, and rainbows. The trip started on the Alagnak River.In the native tongue of the Yupik, it means “to err.” That’s because it’s highly branched and every years the branching changes a bit. For this reason it is also called the “The Branch River.” It’s noted for the kings and chums that surge into its waters in early July. They were, indeed, in, but the runs had really just started—they were about a week late. Thus, our fishing success was based on fishing intensity and determination, not an overabundance of fish.
I landed a beautiful, bright chrome king and many chums. More on the king fishing in a later blog. The chums were really hot for a magenta Collared Leech, and we caught them to excess. Well, not really. One can never catch too many, and chums don’t just roll over and come on in. They fight like a demon possessed, all the way to hand, and then throw water on you as you release them. This day, I fished them with a standard down and across swing, using two 3/0 shot ahead of the fly to get it deep since the chums were lying in water about waist deep. I love ‘em. More on chum tactics in a later blog.
A chrome bright king, 43 x 26.5 (about 40 pounds) from the Alagnak
A chrome bright, wild and crazy chum--note the faint tiger striping onr the body
Mmmm those magenta Collared Leeches taste good.
The magenta Collared Leech--the source of all the wild times with the chums.
[JB in here for GB while he is off lashing the waters of the Alaskan wilds. Just a little re-post on Reading Waters from my own site.]
While posting re-formatted excerpts of a book is nice, it is sometimes nicer to actually see what the inside of a book really looks like. I figure that anyone interested in the “Fly Fishing” series should at least see a sample of the “guts” of one of the titles. With that in mind, below is a link to a PDF file that shows four pages (20-21 and 66-67) from Reading Waters.
My guitar playing, knife-making, fly fishing buddy, John Beth sent me a couple of hex photos. They really show off the size of this, the largest mayfly in North America. No wonder everything that swims eats them. I’ve even seen muskrats holding out in the currents eating hex duns–very odd, indeed.
One Hex is a handful.
On hex makes a 5 weight seem a bit small.
My friend, Nancy Siegler alerted me to Andy’s photos. I’d seen a couple of them before, but not stopped to take the time and see more of his work. Well, his work is rather good, if you ask me. Go have a look at some of his great shots at http://andyguibord.zenfolio.com/. You won’t be disappointed.
His site is protected so that photos can’t be copied, but if you click on the link above you can see all his available work.
When the Hex mayflies hatch it is a true spectacle of nature. Not just a hatch but a superhatch beyond imagining. You have to see it to understand. The Discovery channel called it a “Swarm,” like locusts, and so it is. For more go have a look at this video clip by the Discovery Channel http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/superswarm-mayfly-clouds.html
A really great pattern to imitate the giant duns is the Hair Wing Dun. Really easy and fast to tie. Here’s the gist of it from Designing Trout Flies (1991). The art is by Jason Borger.
The Hex Dun, rightly called the Giant Michigan mayfly.
The tail is pheasant tail fibers
The yellow deer hair body is tied in first at the head, and spiraled rearward.
The body is extender around the tail fibers and the then the thread wrapped back to the head x"ing over the rearward spiral wraps. A thread base is wrapped tightly over the body read to set the wings.
The wings are a clump of natural-color deer hair, tied in a splayed over the top 1/2 of the hook.
The "wing" forms the wing and legs of the fly.
Ready for the eating.
Have you ever had a hankerin’ to have something just because it is handmade and truly beautiful besides beings a great tool? Well, if so, you need to have a close look a Faruk Ekich’s DamaSeal Vise. Faruk is the developer and manufacturer of the Ekich Ultimate Bobbin (see review under Fly Tying, Fly Tying Bobbins). Besides being a great tool that works exceptionally well, Faruk has given the vise a look that is truly outstanding–Damascus jaws.The number one job of the fly tying vise, no matter how lovely or mechanically diverse it may be, is to t hold a hook. If it can’t, it’s not a good vise. Well no worry here. The hooks stays where it’s supposed to. To contact Faruk about pricing and availability of this totally handmade instrument, visit his web site–see the link at thee left under Ekich Ultimate Bobbin.
The DamaSeal Vise is a very functional tool.
Now there's a lovely pair of vise jaws!
Trajan Weaver send me an email and noted, There is a scene (the final shot of an older man fishing, tying a fly on the end of his line) in “A River Runs Through It.” Would you show me, step by step, how he was tying on the fly? I would much appreciate it.
The knot is the Turle. It was widely used with gut leaders, and was designed so that the tippet came straight out of the eye, while the knot itself was tied around the head of the fly. It’s just a slip knot. The tippet is threaded through the eye, and then the slip knot tied. The fly is placed through the slip knot, and it’s drawn tight over the head of the fly. The Double Turle is a modification of the original Turle in which the end of the leader goes through the knot twice. See Below.
Here’s an illustration from MeClane’s New Standard Fishing Encyclopedia (1974, Holt, Rinehart, Winston, NY.)
The Double Turle Knot is really just a slip knot tied around the head of the fly.